Disumbrationist School of Art

Los Angeles resident Paul Jordan Smith was, by profession, a novelist (author of Nomad and Cables of Cobweb) and a Latin scholar. But in 1924, having never painted before, he picked up a brush and drew a picture of a South Seas islander holding a banana over her head. So began his double identity as brooding Russian artist Pavel Jordanowitch.

(left) Paul Jordan Smith; (right) Smith as Pavel Jerdanowitch

In the guise of Jerdanowitch, Smith entered paintings in exhibitions throughout the country. They were singled out for praise by critics, and Jerdanowitch's reputation was fast-growing, until Smith revealed his deception in 1927. He explained that he perpetrated the hoax "just to prove most art critics didn't know what they were talking about."

Exaltation: The Launching of Jerdanowitch's Career

Smith's wife, Sarah Bixby Smith, was an amateur painter. In 1924 she showed some works in a local exhibition, but they were panned by critics, who dismissed them as "distinctly of the old school."

This annoyed Smith and got him thinking about what he perceived to be an unfortunate fad among art critics for anything modern or abstract in style. But when his wife then tried to update her style to make it more modernistic, Smith decided to take matters into his own hands. He later wrote:

I asked for paint and canvas and said I'd do a real modern — I'd never tried to paint anything in my life. Given the oldest tubes of red and green paint and a worn brush I took up a defective canvas and in a few minutes splashed out the crude outlines of an asymmetrical savage holding up what was intended to be a star fish, but turned out a banana. I labeled it 'Yes We Have No Bananas,' took it to the dinner table for the delight or disgust of the family, and thought that was the end of the matter.

Exaltation, aka Yes We Have No Bananas

For a while the painting sat in his living room, doubling as a fire screen. But when it attracted the praise of a visitor, who thought it looked like a work by Gauguin, Smith decided to see if it could fool real art critics.

In 1925, Smith entered the banana picture in New York's Exhibition of the Independents at the Waldorf-Astoria. He renamed it 'Exaltation,' put a high price-tag on it (just to make sure no one would buy it), and listed it as the work of a Russian artist, Pavel Jerdanowitch, which was a play on Paul Jordan. He figured that an exotic name should make him a bigger hit with critics.

To Smith's amusement, critics promptly swallowed the bait. He soon received a letter from a French art journal, the Revue du Vrai et du Beau (Review of the True and the Beautiful), praising the work and asking whether Jerdanowitch could supply more biographical information about himself, as well as an interpretation of the painting.

Smith happily obliged. He wrote back that Jerdanowitch had been born in Moscow, but came to America at 10 years of age with his family and settled in Chicago. But suffering from tuberculosis, he later moved to the South Sea Islands, before relocating to Southern California. As a final flourish, Smith described Jerdanowitch as the founder of the Disumbrationist school of art. Smith even sent along a photograph of himself as Jerdanowitch, with his hair slicked back in order to create an air of brooding intensity.

As for the painting, Smith wrote that it represented the breaking of the shackles of womanhood. The woman, he said, had just killed a missionary (if you look closely you can see the missionary's skull sitting on a pole behind her). In addition, she had just taken a bite of a banana, even though women were forbidden to eat bananas on her island. She was waving the banana above her head to represent her new-found freedom.

Smith's biographical information about Jerdanowitch, along with the interpretation of the painting, appeared in the next issue of the Revue du Vrai et du Beau, accompanied by appreciated remarks from critics. And so Panel Jerdanowitch was born.

Aspiration: Jerdanowitch's Reputation Grows

Based on the positive reviews of his first painting, Jordanowitch was asked to exhibit the next year, at Marshall Field's No-Jury Exhibition in Chicago. Smith decided to oblige and expanded Jerdanowitch's oeuvre. He prepared a work titled 'Aspiration,' that was a colorful piece showing a woman gazing up at a rooster on a post.

Aspiration

This work was selected for reproduction in the January 26, 1926 issue of Chicago's Art World , and Lena McCauley, art critic for the Chicago Evening Post, praised the piece as a "delightful jumble of Gauguin, Pop Hart and negro minstrelsy with a lot of Jerdanowitch individuality."

Next, Smith prepared two more works, 'Illumination' and 'Adoration,' that he exhibited again at the New York Waldorf-Astoria. About 'Illumination,' Smith (as Jerdanowitch) wrote: "It is midnight and the drunken man stumbles home, anticipating a storm from his indignant wife; he sees her eyes and the lightning of her wrath. It is conscience at work."

Again, these works were highly praised by critics. La Revue Moderne described them as "inspirational."

Adoration

Illumination

Confession

In 1927, Smith decided he had proven his point and that it was time to pull the veil off of Pavel Jerdanowitch. He made a full confession to Los Angeles Times writer Alma Whitaker, and the story of the hoax broke on the front page of the LA Times on August 14, 1927.

In his confession, Smith explained that he had hoped to show that much of the art currently in fashion was "poppycock" promoted by critics who knew very little about art. He derisively described these critics as "'fraidy cats" and poseurs.

The Jerdanowitch Sequel and Smith's Subsequent Career

Jerdanowitch, it turned out, wasn't entirely dead. In 1931, Boston's Robert C. Vose Gallery (with Smith's cooperation) staged an exhibition of Jerdanowitch's work. It included a new work, 'Gination,' of which Jerdanowitch wrote:

"It depicts the appalling effects of alcohol on Hollywood women of the studios. It is a moral picture. Note the look of corruption on the lady's skin. Everything is unbalanced. While good gin might not have just that effect, boulevard gin brings it about in short time. The picture is painted in bold strokes and with a sure hand. I believe it is the most powerful of my works."

Gination

Smith also wrote a catalog to accompany the paintings in which he wrote:

"To those who realize that real art depicts not what we see but what we feel, hear, and smell, these soul revealing creations will be sources of ecstatic, moronic rapture."

However, this time around, the paintings generated only lukewarm reviews. Though Smith claimed that someone did offer him $1500 for one of them. After the exhibition, the gallery revealed the real story behind the paintings.

Smith then declared that Jerdanowitch was finally fully dead, and that the "flossy writers" on art no longer needed to fear he would "wield brush and palette for their ultimate dismay."

In 1933, Smith began writing a column for the L.A. Times, which he continued until his retirement in 1957. He was also known as a leading authority on the writings of the 17th century author Robert Burton.

Comments

Ahhh...superbly amazingly disarmingly fabulous!

Posted by Frances in NH on Sat Aug 25, 2012 at 05:52 PM

So, is it a hoax? Isn't it like publishing under a different name, (or like an established musician submitting work back to their record company only to have it rejected) - what I mean is, maybe there was some aspects that made the paintings great, so while a hoax in name, perhaps there was a talent there after all??
john

Posted by john scott in adelaide south australia on Tue Jan 01, 2013 at 08:00 PM

Have to agree with John Scott, above. This isn't a hoax, even if it was intended as such. The critics were rightly recognising that with a little training the artist had the potential to show some real merit. Paul Smith may not have taken his own work seriously, but he had an exceptionally good eye. If he'd actually trained as, and become a painter instead of a writer, we'd probably know him as an early C20 American artist of the second rank.

Posted by Dave in United States on Wed Apr 17, 2013 at 09:53 PM

The artist himself comes forward and says "Gotcha" "It's all bull"
only a liberal artist or modern "art" lover would disagree with that assessment. "No, no, you can SEE his potential." "It may have been intended as a hoax but you can't fake the emotions that are clearly present in his pieces." Really? It's idiotic statements like that, that keep modern "art" alive and well to this day.

Liberal artists love nothing more than to find symbolism, meaning, and emotion where there is none. The fact that anyone would question Smith's admission that the paintings are junk and he just wanted to prove a point, is like having a stage magician explain exactly how the "Saw a woman in half" trick works, and still believing that it's magic.

Posted by Davidson in United States on Wed Jan 29, 2014 at 05:15 AM

I totally agree with Davidson.
I am an artist and I am tired of all the crap out there that some people show in exhibits or festivals (random splashes of paint that took them 30 min to achieve). My cat could paint like that, why pay thousands for that?
Buy art from real talented artists. Don't get fooled.
This reminds me of this lady that had her turtle walk on paint and then on a piece of paper and I think she was actually selling the turtle's "art" on ebay, lol.

Posted by Abril in United States on Mon Mar 24, 2014 at 12:59 PM

The "critics" and i say that very losely, that still to this day say that Smith had any raw talent. Is bs! Just like the comments of even some now... I love what he PROVED, there will always be some "modern art supporters" that will praise anything ANYTHING as "art" I LOVE what he did .. The true scholar and writer in him HAD to prove a point... Ans still today his "works" are still doing it... You can put a dress on a pig, but its still a pig... Hr even
Hoaxed his type and explanations of the ridiculously moronic paintings

Posted by L. Cook in Washington dc on Sun Mar 22, 2015 at 06:47 AM

I actually kinda like his paintings, but he proves there's nothing special about art. I don't know anything about art but nor did he.

Posted by Bosco on Tue Jun 30, 2015 at 02:31 AM

Many years ago, I had a "discussion" about modern art with an art-critic; I had asked him to give me a definition of Art, inc. Modern Art.
He told me it would take days to do so and he challenged me to give him my definition, which I did.
My definition of ART:
If it is ART, it will move my soul
(Art critic nodded his head (very vigoriously) in agreement) I continued:
If it's not "Art", it will move my bowels.

Posted by Cranky in Somewhere in Australia on Mon Nov 02, 2015 at 04:53 PM

"Really? It's idiotic statements like that, that keep modern "art" alive and well to this day.
Liberal artists love nothing more than to find symbolism, meaning, and emotion where there is none."

Like these paintings, you're pretty crude and opinionated. Maybe you shouldn't worry so much about other's people's tastes. What other people like has nothing to do with you. History changes people's perceptions and individuals are free to pursue art in whatever manner they enjoy. Lighten up.

I appreciate these for the joke, they remind me of Marcel Duchamp and R.Mutt's "Fountain".

Posted by James in New England on Thu Dec 10, 2015 at 06:28 AM

I suspect that Jerdanowitch/Jordan Smith was a better artist than he thought he was.

There's a well-established tradition of "outsider art," made by people with no academic training and sometimes only marginal skills, that still evokes a reaction in the viewer.

All this "hoax" says it that there are many ways of looking at art and even more ways of making it.

I've seen works of art, including some very famous ones, that, while admittedly rendered with an admirable amount of technical skill, leave me with nothing but a pretty picture to look at, while something rendered in a wild and even seemingly haphazard manner (think Jackson Pollock) gives rise to a nearly transcendent experience.

I remember standing in the National Gallery Annex in Washington, DC. looking at a Mark Rothko painting, a seemingly simple rectangle of paint on a background, and being brought to tears. Meanwhile, someone standing next to me said to his companion "I could have painted that."

"Perhaps true," I thought. "But you didn't. And you never will. You never will."

Posted by Steve in California on Sat Jan 09, 2016 at 11:12 AM

I agree with Davidson. Perhaps art critics are full of bull.

Posted by Sean Con in International Space Station on Fri Oct 14, 2016 at 07:57 AM

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